Paper filter, aftermarket filter or induction kit?

Soldato
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Just wanted to gather people's thoughts on the above - the car (A remapped Mk2 Octavia vRS 2.0 TFSI) currently has a Pipercross panel filter.

I've heard some people say that these are worthwhile on a turbo car, some say that the oil can cause MAF issues and others say they're harmless but pointless. Given that the cleaning kit is more expensive than an OE paper filter, is it worth keeping at next service?

Or on the other hand, do induction kits offer any real world benefit in cars like this other than noise?
 
Yes. I also liked those videos.

I used to have a pipercross on my 1.8T Golf, and the MAF needed replacing shortly afterwards. Cannot say for sure if the pipercross was the issue, but it was very coincidental that only a few moths after fitting the panel the MAF went.

I did use a green cotton filter afterwards, as this was meant to be oil free. But it made no noticeable difference to the performance. I have just used paper panels ever since. If you want to increase the noise, you can always pick up a spare airbox from a scrappy and drill it out. I also did this in my Golf, and it did make it sound different / louder.
 
Stick with OEM. For the tiny performance gain you probably won't get, it's not worth risking damage to the engine.

If it was a decent bump in grunt then it'd be worth it, but half a horsepower at the potential cost of a MAF seems like a poor return to me.
 
Just put a high performing panel filter.

Some stock airboxes can be modified to allow them more air without compromising performance. However you'd need to check with the owners club forums.

There are some induction kits that do make tangible gains, but they're usually very expensive, and a remap can exploit the performance and only a small building block of a bigger picture. I think FI cars tend to do better with improved breathing mods like that in general.
 
The increase of power is almost zero, but you will have an increase of fuel consumption as the noise coming from the filter will make you rev your engine while waiting on the traffic light :)
 
You often only get a boost in performance if you change other things on the car, like chipping and exhaust as the airfilters now are quite good.
 
A pod filter/induction kit isn't really going to give a performance increase on that car (not trying to dis your ride, just saying) just noise.


I'll post these here as I often do for these sorts of threads on the internet...

/snip

...pretty much pointless really.

Wow those videos are pretty dire, it's sad that such idiots are able to force their stupidity on other people just by uploading a video onto the internet with okay production value, the second one shows an R34 skyline which would benefit from both a pod filter or a CAI, but obviously not if that was the only modification on the car >.>

Pods and CAIs only work if the stock airbox is a limiting factor, obviously they aren't going to do much on a stock car (obvious exceptions being something like a Supra which is factory restricted by design).
 
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Thanks All - I think I'll drop a decent quality paper filter in there at service time then, its cheaper than the pipercross cleaning kit and it doesnt sound like it's doing me any good
 
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